The ideas of our constitution were first born in the Colonial University System. The founding fathers were the intellectuals of their time, and the university was the place that fostered their great thinking. Even though the early Colonial Universities were meant only for the upper class elite to become politicians and military leaders, they were still a place of philosophizing about society, theology, and basic human rights and needs.

Today, scientific research is still a huge part of what Universities are. Even dating back to University of Bologna, the world’s first higher education institution was devoted partly to the study of medicine and law. These fields of study still hold importance to our own higher education, but there still seems to be a missing factor in the type of thinking that universities are creating today.

Universities for Social Movements

The Founding Fathers were inspired by Enlightenment thinkers, which eventually led them to revolutionize the way society is governed, and at that time, it was exactly what was needed. When you really take a moment to think about it, you will be astounded by how radical of them it was to tear down their entire system and rebuild it upon new fresh ideas.

So even though we still see scientific breakthroughs happen at University research centers, and bright young entrepreneurs creating the best online platforms in the dorms of Harvard and Stanford, when was the last time a social movement was created at a University, or a radical new social policy? The answers to this question could take awhile to come up with. I’m sure it would take a lot of us to do some research into the subject. Occupy Wall Street was close, but it hardly was as radical or innovative as let’s say… a new type of government. The last true one could have been the Civil Rights Movement, when real discussion was happening on campuses across the U.S. and it helped affect a positive change.

We're living in a time when cultures are mixing, races are intermeshing, and gender lines are becoming blurred. Technological forces are homogenizing the human experience, and a shared social understanding will help us to deal with the forces changing our lives. For thousands of years, universities were a place of great ideas being born that could change the world. Now, more people than ever are enrolled in college, and new products are making our lives easier, but there is less conversation focused on social understanding, progress, and critical thought. So what changed?

A Shifted Paradigm

The reason for this lack of social innovation could come from the fact that we modified the way we believed higher education is supposed to function. One change was the creation of the Association of American Universities in 1900, which began connecting degree programs to professions. Even internationally during the 1950’s and 1960’s, when Universities became seen as a means of economic expansion, they too placed an emphasis on job expectations.

Articles are often written that rank majors/degree based on how profitable they can become. Sociology, Anthropology, the Arts, Philosophy, Liberal Arts, History, English and Literature all constantly rank as the least profitable degrees to attain. So what exactly is the point of this? It could be helpful for people who want to have the quick success out of college, so therefore they should attain degrees to match these industries: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil/Gas extraction (highest paying degree is Petroleum Engineering), business management, construction, manufacturing, and Finance and Insurance (Huffington Post).

A liberal arts education is no longer valued because people feel that only a specific course of study into a profitable industry is the thing that makes going to college worth the money of going in the first place. For example, James Madison studied many things in college including math, rhetoric, geography, theology, philosophy, but also law, government, and public policy. If James Madison did not study so many topics, would he been able to draft the Constitution? (Side note: James Madison came out of college not knowing what his profession would be, but instead took an interest in the Revolution.)

Reframing Our Education

Changes in our education system can be made that could potentially bring back the kind of social critical thinking skills that seem to be less supported in our current higher education. One way would be a model of free high standard online-education for certain fields of study. If we keep telling ourselves that the traditional fields of study are not profitable for students, then we’ll see a huge lack of progress in those fields over the years.

We now fixate our educational system on the basis of where it ends for the students, instead of focusing on a broad range of topics to study that can be used for critical social thinking skills that can revolutionize our public policy and improve the way we govern and understand ourselves. This might not be the ideal recipe for immediate economic development, but ultimately, this can lead to a more understanding, participatory, and successful civil and economic society. Yet, we still frantically try to figure out which school to choose under which course of study, and then worry about where it will get us.

This fixation on success and end results is something that philosopher Alan Watts thought about as well. He compares it to only listening to the first and last notes of music. What if there was a new kind of education system that didn’t just focus on those last two notes, but instead focused on the brilliance that can be created—a true eye opening and thought provoking educational system that gives birth to groundbreaking ways of thinking—one that focuses on all the music in between.

by Darin Milanesio